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Product Briefing Outline: Luminescent Technologies, has broadened its product portfolio by adding what it claims to be the industry’s first offline computational mask inspection product. A premier company in Asia is the first customer to qualify the new computational defect review product in volume production.

Problem: During the photomask inspection process, operators manually sort through and evaluate defect images to determine if the photomask will result in the desired wafer print. This is time consuming, and since the process is subject to operator variability, it is often inconsistent and unreliable. 

Solution: Luminescent’s computational solution provides automated mask defect review and dispositioning based on aerial images of the photomask.  The product accepts images from commonly used mask defect inspection and review tools, enhances the images, and quickly and accurately determines if the defects are critical or not.  Operator errors are eliminated and defect review cycle time is significantly reduced, in some instances by greater than 75 percent. 

Applications: Photomask inspection.

Platform: Computational defect review opens a broader field which Luminescent calls computational lithography and inspection (CLI). Computational lithography (or computational scaling) uses mathematical models to improve the resolution of light across a critical layer of an integrated circuit (IC).  Computational inspection integrates with computational lithography by using similar mathematical approaches to filter for photomask defects by simulating pattern errors on final silicon.

Availability: July 2009 onwards.